Page 42 - Tehelka Issue 15 August 2018

Acute shortage of doctors

adds to health woes

he groundwork of all hap- What is appalling for a country like India, one of the largest and
piness is good health. Yet,
a measly health budget, fastest growing world economies, that it is facing a severe health
severe shortage and un- crisis due to government’s apathy, reports subhangi singh
even distribution of quali-
T fied doctors have impeded Lanka and most South American na- wide being run without a single doc-
millions of Indians from enjoying their tions have a better doctor-population tor, the picture looks quite grim for the
share of ‘India Shining’. Patients ly- ratio. ever-surging number of patients in In-
ing on stretchers in corridors of cov- WHO norms prescribe that there dia. According to a recent report in The
eted government hospitals, stories should be 1 doctor amongst a popula- Tribune, the sleep lab at the PGI, Chan-
of relatives carrying the deceased on tion of 1,000. As per information pro- digarh has been closed due to acute
shoulders (or carts) due to lack of suit- vided by Medical Council of India, there shortage of doctors in the Neurology
able transport, support/sanitation staff are a total 10,41,395 allopathic doctors Department.
stitching wounds, et al may sound un- registered with the State Medical Coun- These centres follow a hub and
palatable to some. Alas, it is but a famil- cils/Medical Council of India as on spoke design. Each PHC is targeted to
iar reality for majority of Indians, who September 30, 2017. Assuming 80 cover a population of approximately
have neither the access to the flashy per cent availability, it is estimated 25,000. The PHCs act as referral centres
private hospitals in metropolitan cities that around 8.33 lakh doctors may be for Community Health Centres (CHCs),
nor can they afford the same. actually available for active service. which are 30-bed hospitals at the dis-
Since public health is not a major Some states like Tripura have a Medical trict level. Figures say 12,263 specialists
poll issue in India, successive govern- Council with no doctors registered with are required in community health cen-
ments have ignored it. As a result, the it. Out of these registered practitioners, tres, whereas 3,789 doctors are needed
percentage of total national budget only 1,14,969 (11 per cent) are govern- in primary health centres. The states
expenditure on health has remained ment doctors. While Puducherry has that face an acute shortage of trained
shockingly low in India even in the 40 Public Health Centres (PHCs), Sikkim medical practitioners in PHCs are —
post-reform era. While 2018 saw the has only 24. There are some states like Madhya Pradesh (614), Uttar Pradesh
announcement of world’s largest na- Chattisgarh where more than half the (1689), Assam (500), Orissa (413), Bihar
tional health insurance program as PHCs (390) function without a doctor. (211), Gujarat (65) and Punjab (45). Ac-
the Ayushmann Bharat health scheme, The national average is a little better. cording to the Health Ministry’s latest
there was a 2.1 per But with as many as 1,974 PHCs nation- statistics, the broad average might in-
cent decline in the allocation to- dicate a poor doctor-population ratio of
wards the National Health Mission, around 1:1300 but government doctors
India’s largest programme for primary According to an in India are handling whopping levels
health infrastructure. According to the IRDA report, the of population, with each catering to
Insurance Regulatory and Develop- 11,082 people. While nearly 70 per cent
ment Authority (IRDA), the Indian Gov- Indian government’s of the Indian population resides in ru-
ernment’s contribution to health insur- contribution to ral areas, more than 60 per cent of the
ance stands at roughly 32 per cent, as registered doctors are concentrated
opposed to 83.5 per cent in the United health insurance in urban areas, thus creating a highly
Kingdom. Even countries with lesser skewed distribution and accessibility of
infrastructure, like Sri Lanka and Thai- stands at roughly basic health facilities.
land, spend more than double on pub- 32 per cent, as So, the question arises that are we
lic health as compared to India, in per not producing enough doctors as a
capita terms. According to WHO’s find- opposed to nation? There were only 19 medical
ings last year the density of doctors at 83.5 per cent in colleges and universities imparting
the national level was 79.7 per 100,000 medical education in India at the time
people. Even countries like Pakistan, Sri the United Kingdom of independence. In the post-reform

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